Nigel Farage may have grabbed the headlines when he announced he was breaking centuries of Parliamentary convention and challenging Speaker Bercow for the seat of Buckingham. Much chatter has remained about the possibility of an Independent Candidate emerging to challenge them both. Independent candidates could play a big role in the next election as anger continues over MP’s expenses and with Parliament failing to sanction tough action against some of the worst offenders, fury remains in the country at large. Speaker Bercow announced this week that MP’s who ‘flipped’ their second homes to maximise their expenses or avoided paying capital gains tax will escape censure under the Official House of Commons enquiry. That means MP’s like Elliot Morley and David Chaytor who claimed thousands for ‘phantom mortgages’ have been given the all clear by Sir Thomas Legg. Oh and another ‘flipper’, John Bercow, wont be penalised…worth mentioning that!
Today’s guest blog is from Patrick Phillips, the man that both Bercow and Farage will come to hear much more from in the coming weeks and months. It goes without saying that come election results night, Buckingham will certainly be a Constituency that the media will be keeping a close eye on and reporting widely. When Patrick got in touch telling me he was standing and the reasons why, it made sense for a Guest Blog so you readers could hear his story and pass your own judgement. A story of how a Conservative voter felt he needed to take action. Over to you Patrick…….
Guest Blog: Patrick Phillips
An Independent’s Story
You can imagine the scene – a mid-June, midweek, friendly supper party in a private house in a small village near Princes Risborough in Buckinghamshire. Lots of the usual chit chat but then a disgruntled voice sounds out bemoaning the fact the area in which most of those present live was going to be the subject of a boundary change at the forthcoming election. They were going to be moved from Aylesbury where their current MP was the popular and well regarded David Lidington, and become part of, as she put it, the ghastly Bercow’s flock at Buckingham. And was it true – what she had heard – that he was putting himself up for Speaker, and if he were to be elected to that office he would be re-elected unopposed at the next election, which meant that all of those present together with some further 70,000 odd electors at Buckingham would be denied a vote at the election?
“Well, yes”, said the host, “there is the convention that the major political parties in the House of Commons do not field candidates against a sitting speaker. But,” he continued, “I am pretty sure an Independent could stand and force a vote. They certainly have stood in the past”.
“But what sort of person would be prepared to do that?”, asked another, “he’d have to be mad, wouldn’t he”.
It was at that moment that either temporary madness or a rush of blood to head took over and I found myself saying, “Well if nobody else better qualified comes forward prepared to do it, I might just do so myself”.
Fast forward to Monday 22ndJune and the Speaker’s hustings in the House of Commons culminating in the 322 to 271 vote victory for John Bercow over Sir George Young. Within minutes of the result being announced the phone rang. It was my host from the supper party. “Is your money still where your mouth was”, he enquired – straight to the point. My response was equally direct. “Money and mouth are still co-located”.
And so began the current adventure to stand at Buckingham as an Independent. If any encouragement was needed it came within a couple of days when Mr Bercow was reported as saying he expected to remain as Speaker for ONLY about nine years, presumably the remainder of the current parliament and then the next two. Perhaps, I thought, he doth presume too much, and my determination hardened.
Two days later e-mailed letters were sent to various organs of the press giving them this hot story, “The Speaker’s seat will be contested” backed up by my credentials, local man, has lived forty years in the constituency, former High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, President of local Buckinghamshire charity and so on. Result zippo! At least to begin with.
Over the next weekend I managed to make contact with a certain parliamentary sketch writer who passed on my news to the London Evening Standard who ran the story as the lead in that day’s Londoner’s Diary, and on July 1stthe Daily Mail printed my letter on their letters page. Back in Buckinghamshire I got a fair crack of the whip from the Aylesbury based “Bucks Herald” who ran profiles of myself, John Bercow, and a UKIP PPC, Dave Fowler who has subsequently been replaced by Nigel Farage. But other than this nothing.
Problem. With a constituency twenty five miles North to South and about twenty East – West containing just three towns, Buckingham, Winslow and Princes Risborough but eighty-five villages, how does an Independent, with no party machine or indeed any organisation at all to start with, spread the word of one’s candidature. Trying to get the national press (to say nothing of the BBC) to acknowledge one’s presence is like pushing with a piece of string, and just as frustrating. So we have adopted a direct grassroots approach using e-mail and the internet including now (hopefully) the blogosphere.
E-mails, and where e-mail addresses were not available, letters, have been sent to each of the constituency’s parish councils, telling them two things. Firstly about the parliamentary convention which meant that contrary to past elections there would almost certainly be no Conservative, Labour or Liberal-Democrat standing at Buckingham, and why; and secondly that I would be offering myself as a candidate (and being a fair minded bloke, that Mr. Farage would be doing so as well). Similarly I have set off a form of chain e-mail carrying the same message to private individuals.
To augment those communications a website www.phillips4buckingham.co.uk has been set up so people can get a flavour of who I am, what I believe in, and my views on some of the salient issues of the day. This is important because as an Independent, and thus not a member of any political party, one does not have the benefit of a formal manifesto with specific policies spelt out on which to stake one’s pitch. Nor is it easy to find a label by which one’s position in the left-right political spectrum can be easily identified. Electoral Law prohibits me calling myself an “Independent Conservative”, but I think anybody who has known me for any length of time would agree that I can be fairly described as “conservatively minded”. My views are of the centre-right and as regards Europe I am definitely Eurosceptic.
So what do I offer the electors of Buckingham?.
I offer myself as someone who shares their predominantly conservative views, and as a receptacle for the votes of those disillusioned with Mr Bercow and those not wishing to see UKIP establish a beachhead on this bluest of blue territory. (The memories of Orpington and how long it took to win back that seat after a by-election loss to Liberal, Eric Lubbock, all those years ago is illustrative of that danger)
I also offer a return to normality at the election after the coming one. It is not my aim to become a career politician and if elected would only expect to serve one term.
And finally, if elected, I would support a change to the Speaker’s convention that can disenfranchise a whole constituency. I would support a proposition that when a new Speaker is elected by MPs, he or she should be assigned to a nominal constituency (the name St Stephens has sometimes been mooted), and a by-election take place in his or hers old constituency. The irony of this is, of course, that if that were now to be the case, I would not be doing what I am. But this is now and that is , perhaps, for the future.
Watch this space, it could prove to be a interesting story, away from the main battlefield at the next election and the bookies have no idea how to call it.
Patrick Phillips
